Soundwalk Into Wellbeing Canalside

Soundwalk Into Wellbeing goes to Canalside Heritage Centre, Beeston Lock

…..exploring inspirational healing places in Nottinghamshire……..

9th Oct 13.00 and 16^th October 2018 13.0 – 13.45 and 15.00 – 15.45

Central to the Beeston Lock sound score, developed by composer / soundartist Isabel Jones, we hear music, location recording and live singing alongside stories of wellbeing and resilience, working with seldom heard carers and canalside people who have drawn on challenging lived experience to let nature, breathe space into their daily lives.

The Canalside project follows several months of soundart research, connecting to nature and the people who live, work and visit the canal and river. As part of a programme of soundart, yoga and wellbeing work Salamanda Tandem is developing across Nottingham.

“Once out there, the performance begins; the sound of birds, the wind in the trees, children at play, the rain, whatever we find, be it soft warm grass, the cold crisp earth of winter, a discarded ball or the common grey squirrel ferreting around. Responding to what the season and each day brings, and the moment. As such resources come into relief, individuals are enveloped in a world of sound and nature.

Invited to be absorbed in total concentration for 45 minutes – 1hr duration, audiences move from passive recipients, to ‘actors’ and ‘inventors’ as senses are awakened to the environment unfolding. The work utilizes local free resources; the sound and presence of nature, walking, movement, air and breath. Drones, loops, and sine waves are generated live from these natural resources, together with live tabla, and a singer/audio describer who guides audiences to become generators of the performance itself.

The soundwalks are designed to lift energies, through cultivating a sense of curiosity, as seldom heard carers, loved ones and friends, tune into the sound, movement and touch of nature, through the healing power of the breath.

Salamanda Tandem’s ‘Soundwalk into Wellbeing’, is an outdoor site specific performance experience, with radio headphones, designed by soundartists, wellbeing practitioners and seldom heard carers, who collaborate together to develop and understand how to grow ones own wellbeing, and that of others, to address the challenges of isolation, stress, disability and poor health”

Our first Soundwalks into wellbeing were designed for our local city park, right opposite Salamanda Tandem’s home studio in West Bridgford, Nottingham, where we ran 4 outdoor soundwalks in autumn 2016, spring 2017, summer 2017 and winter 2018.

Soundwalks Into Wellbeing are tailor-made for each season and location; local parks, canalsides, city squares, disused quarry’s, campus’s, nature reserves, fields and walking tracks, in fact any haven for insects, birds, plants, weeds, grasses, water, mammals, bulbs, seeds, and the soil where things grow. As we observe how every part of nature harmoniously responds to the whole; temperature, tides, winds, light, seasonal food, and the movement of the earth, we connect and plug back into the source from which we all come and all depend; learn to breathe, observe, delight in, reflect upon, and give more than we take. This live headphone participatory experience gives a sense of being on one’s own and simultaneously within a group, where unique and valuable individuals form part of an interdependent whole. Universal connectivity, equally valuable; the mouse, the leaf, the worm, the diverse human being, we are part of, come from and eventually return to the same stuff.

This project is part of ‘White Cane’, a series of touring sensory art works developed by a team of blind, visually impaired and sighted musicians who lead audiences into a fascinating world of sonic vision. Supported by Nottinghamshire County Council & Arts Council with G4A funding.

 

 

Soundwalk Into Wellbeing Bridgford Park

Salamanda Tandem’s ‘Soundwalks into Wellbeing’, are a series of outdoor site specific performances, with radio headphones. Tailor-made for each season, and taking place in our local city park, right opposite Salamanda Tandem’s home in West Bridgford, Nottingham. Designed by soundartists, wellbeing practitioners and seldom heard carers, who collaborate together to develop their own wellbeing, and that of others, to address the challenges of isolation, stress, disability and poor health.

“Once out in the park the performance begins; the sound of birds, the wind in the trees, children at play, the rain, whatever we find, be it soft warm grass, the cold crisp earth of winter, a discarded ball or the common grey squirrel ferreting around. Responding to what the season and each day brings, and the moment. As such resources come into relief, individuals are enveloped in a world of sound and nature.

Invited to be absorbed in total concentration for the 1hr duration, audiences move from passive recipients, to ‘actors’ and ‘inventors’ as senses are awakened to the environment unfolding. The work utilizes local free resources; the sound and presence of nature, walking, movement, air and breath. Drones, loops, and sine waves are generated live from these natural resources, together with live tabla, and a singer/audio describer who guides audiences to become generators of the performance itself.

The first soundwalk project, began as part of ‘White Cane’, a series of touring sensory art works developed by a team of blind, visually impaired and sighted musicians who lead audiences into a fascinating world of sonic vision.

Now the project has grown into a Nottinghamshire County Wide Initiative

Supported by Nottinghamshire County Council, Nottinghamshire CC Co-Production Team, Rushcliffe Mental Health carers,  & Arts Council G4A funding.

4 seasons: For Winter catch here https://thesampler.org/event/salamanda-tandem-soundwalk-wellbeing/

Soundwalk Into Wellbeing Bridgford Park People

Isabel Jones, Biant Singh, Geoffrey Fielding, Duncan Chapman, Caroline Robinson, Drek Grant, Sue Ansell, Indra Slavena, Keith Barlow, Suzanne Barlow, and Tomomi,

People Dancing New Film About Salamanda Tandem

Film Commissioned by People Dancing UK

On Tour in 2016 with a Composer/Curator award from Sound and Music.

“Salamanda Tandem was formed out of a passion to do something about inequality, and about art, by being a catalyst for ‘attitudinal change’.

Take movement; ‘Movement is life’ it is the domain of everyone.  Movement is vibration, vibration is sound, sound is inside us and all around us.

In walking, sitting, lying down, in being still, in performance, in playing, out there on the streets, in the squares, at home, with people of all ages, and in the spaces between.

We’ve come up with a ‘Dance’ that realises this sort of potential, a non-divisive ‘Dance’ led by visually impaired people. We’re not ‘perfect’ bodies, we’re interesting bodies yes, but even when our not so perfect bodies are older, we’re still dancing, still sounding the space, still interacting with people. Because the people want to enter this space, it’s inclusive.

In a world dominated by sight and movement memory, fashion, transient beauty, bigger, higher, and faster; what happens when a visually impaired, blind, deafblind or profoundly disabled people takes a lead?

We find a new dance, a humanitarian growing form practiced between 2 or more people on an equal basis.

Looking into the core of ourselves and our society, we’ve always asked questions of who or what has status, who or what is beautiful. We’ve always looked into the art and money we make or don’t make, into what we perceive as valuable, and there our practice begins. The work begins in our own practice and we make it happen in synergy with others, in sustainable co-operation. In that moment when we’re really there in it, our anxieties dissolve and we know it isn’t relevant what we are out in the world.

So to make art, music and movement interesting it has to be inclusive, it requires us to inhabit and notice the moment to be awake to that.

These sorts of questions have taken Salamanda Tandem into ‘politics’, and the arenas of policy making, advocacy, training, professional education, and research, to yoga, person-centered ways of interacting, and to the heart of our practice and performance. To be a catalyst for attitudinal change, we’ve developed new forms and structures to enable hidden voices to be heard and audiences to expand, from passive recipients to become creators. A belief in equality and it’s enactment. We think of this as attitudinal change,  it requires us to re-distribute power, re-configure what we do, how we think and how we behave. For example; in White Cane, blind and VIP performers become both choreographer and composer as the sound and movement of the long cane user form the cornerstone of the work. In Quarry-os-sion audio description is the art.

Salamanda Tandem’s politic means that each person’s contribution is made possible within a holistic social, environmental, cultural and economic context. And touch, music, the human voice, embodied experience and all the senses are essential ingredients in the process of making our performance”

 

White Cane On UK Tour 2015 – 2018

Salamanda Tandem: UK Tour 2016 – 2018

White Cane: “a unique experience of ‘sonic vision'”

Photo: Geoffrey Fielding

White Cane received one of the prestigious composer curator awards from Sound and Music to develop a new series of site specific performances touring nationally. Then an arts council grant to actually go on tour!

An intriguingly novel way for audiences wearing radio headsets to re-imagine city centre spaces all around the UK, White Cane starts from the vantage point of a visually impaired long cane user’s movement; we hear the ground underneath our feet, sense the shift of air between the buildings, and play with the world around with sung audio description as our guide in performance.

White Cane is the latest in a series of performances that Salamanda Tandem has created in collaboration with blind and visually impaired performers exploring perceptions of the world through movement, touch, sound and presence.

White Cane was originally commissioned by Ludus Festival Leeds July 2014, as the 3rd in a trilogy of new sensory art works started in 2013. Read here.

White Cane Premiere Ludus Festival

Photo Geoffrey Fielding Performer: Takashi Kikuchi

Listen to a short sample of music from White Cane here:
https://soundcloud.com/salamandatandem/white-cane-salamanda-tandem

Did you Know We’re Yogis

Iyengar Yoga UK celebrations for International Yoga Day. Photo Geoffrey Fielding

This week we met for a board meeting and something significant happened, we realised we were all Yoga practitioners! And of course so was my father Lewis Jones who was instrumental in Salamanda Tandem’s vision of space inside the body to house the world. Then too, in listing our talented and wonderful associate artists, who essentially are my family I noticed that 80% of those practice or teach yoga. Then I realised that 50% of our artist team are disabled people; sensory experts with a unique perception of things.

To quote an audience member’s comment on experiencing one of our latest performance works:

“A deeply spiritual experience,  A ‘mystery’ in the true and ancient meaning of the word”

Something is going on…. something is going right…

For some 12 years now Iyengar Yoga, a very special form of rigorous yoga practice, has formed one of the foundation stones of our mental and physical development.

Back in 2002 when I became qualified as an Iyengar yoga teacher we realised that Yoga could help support the physical and mental health of everyone, so we instituted it as a free weekly class for all our associate artists, admin staff, photographers, musicians, dancers etc. We took it on tour with us, and then began to spread outwards into our local community. We now have a small studio at Salamanda Tandem’s base, soon expanding next door, and we teach around 55 students a week in 4 weekly classes, run monthly workshops just round the corner, and lead retreats in the beautiful landscapes of Snowdonia and South Derbyshire for students from all over the country.

Yoga Practice, Creativity, Art, Nature and Humanity are all one.

Yoga can also be very misunderstood too, it’s as old as the hills but in the west we tend to think of it as some new exercise trend. This week on radio 4 we heard a report on posture; on on the release of chemicals that support feelings of positivity when we stand up straight, then conversely what happens when we collapse. Today we have the science to tell us all this is true, yesterday our ancestors just had their own somatic experience.

Visit our dedicated yoga website and blog if you are interested in joining us for a class, workshop, retreat or just want to read and know a bit more

             

back home in England: nature = prakrity

Can’t Stop Me Shining Film at Broadway Cinema

Look out for Salamanda Tandem ‘s short film ‘Can’t Stop me Shining’ selected by Oska Bright for a national tour of screenings, showing 8 films made by and in collaboration with learning disabled people. This week the tour premieres at Nottingham’s very own Broadway Cinema. ‘Can’t Stop Me Shining’ is Salamanda Tandem’s contribution, a film made by Nathan Campbell, myself and Kevin Hodgetts and celebrates artistic collaboration with learning disabled people. It’s filmed at 38 Laurie Avenue the home of Salamanda Tandem for 21 years
Thursday 2nd October 2014, Broadway Cinema tickets £3
Friday 3rd October, Level Centre
Get it in your diary and book your tickets now!
http://bit.ly/nottinghambroadway

White Cane Premiere Ludus Festival

Hear an excerpt from our current Touring Performance: “White Cane”

“I happened to be rushing on my way to work, and became so completely captivated by the music that I returned in my lunch break. From the moment I put my radio headphones on I felt transformed, and I noticed this place where I come everyday so very differently. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world!”

https://soundcloud.com/chapmanjonesisabelduncan/white-cane-salamanda-tandem

Victoria Gardens, Leeds City Center. Ludus Festival. FREE

• June 20th Morning workshop 10 – 12 and afternoon Performances
• June 21st Ludus Thinks Discussion
• June 22nd morning workshop 11- 1pm and afternoon performances

Takashi Kikushi one of Salamanda Tandem’s performance team.

Photograph: Geoffrey Fielding

Salamanda Tandem’s White Cane for Victoria Gardens in Leeds City Centre is designed to generate creative dialogue between visually impaired, blind and sighted people, both as performers, and audience. It places the blind and visually impaired person’s experience as central to the aesthetic of the work and it’s process. The piece takes local community performers and an audience of passers by on a journey led by visually impaired performers Mickel Smithen and Takashi Kikuchi who use their long white canes to transmit the world as seen, heard and felt through the rolling ball of the cane as it explores the ground. The long white cane becomes a creative medium, an acoustic source for ‘sounding movement’ and shapes the possibility of blind and visually impaired people as choreographers.“

Long-cane performers build up a deep connection with their environment, acting as guides to their sensory world, in an unfolding dialogue between performers and public. A team of visually impaired performers explores the square and environs using their long white canes. The cane’s ball moves across the ground, picking up bumps, cracks, grooves, levels and nuances. It feeds back sensory information through the hands and bodies of the performers. As they tune into their environs, patterns of movement emerge and the performance emerges. Co-composers Duncan Chapman and Isabel Jones pick up the fascinating sound of the ball and send via radio signal to audience headsets. On the way, that sound is mixed with live sung audio description, the sound of Takashi playing his viola, vibration and touch signals”

Salamanda Tandem 2014: Audience and performer listen through radio headsets

Isabel Jones audio describes Mickel Smithen’s Journey

Salamanda Tandem’s Touchstone at Corby Cube 2014. Commissioned by Fermynwoods Contemporary Art

Co-composers Isabel Jones and Duncan Chapman

Photo: Geoffrey Fielding

One of the key aspects of White Cane is audio description (AD), this will be transmitted through radio headsets to the general public by co-composers Isabel Jones and Duncan Chapman. Audio description (AD) has recently become available via digital TV, and the major TV channels are now legally obliged to provide it on 20% of their programmes. But it is a complex, challenging, and largely undeveloped form, which can enhance enjoyment (or not) in live performance. Since the very early days of Salamanda Tandem, (est. 1989) we have been exploring this, considering how audio description in rehearsal and performance can make it possible for blind or visually Impaired people to take the leap from passive recipients, to being active creators in the process of making performance. The role of co-director and blind person Lewis Jones was key here for us and we were able to embed the principle very early on in: Smell of The Blue 1992, Subvision 1994, BodyCam 1996, Eye Behind the Eye 1999, Via Crucis 2004 and Touch Talk 2005. Often AD separates visually impaired and blind people from the rest of the audience, transmitting an entirely different experience to them, in White Cane we consider this and explore how performers and audience whether blind, visually impaired or sighted could take the same journey in sound.

Mickel Smithen leads an audience through Corby Cube  commissioned by Fermynwoods Contemporary Art

The Question of Barriers – Mickel Smithen

“I have worked with Salamanda Tandem as an associate artist for 8 years, and have been involved as a performer in 13 site specific performances so far. In the work we do at Salamanda Tandem, audio description is so closely embedded it has become part of the art work itself and the process. It’s not just meant as a special thing for VIP’s, it is for everyone and it enables me to take a lead in the work. It shows how visually impaired people (VIP’s) can educate others and how we can make a contribution to the art itself”

The Question of Equity – Isabel Jones

My father Lewis Jones was a deafblind man and a Welshman who lived in Nottingham for most of his life. He was one of three blind brothers and the co-founder of Salamanda Tandem in 1989. Sadly he died last year. Our work together was profound, and explored the meeting between his inner world of synesthesia and my work as a choreographer, composer and director. Our work together not only influenced me and Salamanda Tandem but also the growth of somatic practice and the field of dance and disabled people internationally.

Central for my father Lewis Jones and I in founding Salamanda Tandem, and in directing ‘Eye Contact’ a company of blind, visually impaired and sighted dancers from 1992 – 2006, was to raise the question of ‘equity’. Blind and visually impaired people become accustomed to the idea of being watched by sighted people without reciprocation. Looking could even be understood as a form of touching without the socially unacceptable problems associated with physical contact. ‘Do Not Touch’. A blind person can neither, look or touch in return. Vision is above all other senses the most dominant in society, and it goes for dance too, where accessibility for VIP audiences is rare. For participation too, in an art form where high status is placed in training upon the ability to learn movement via imitation from what we ‘see’ and only a small faction use somatic methods. In such a climate, leadership for people where sight is not their dominant sense, relies on a paradigm shift from inside the artform itself.In our latest works Ad Astra made a the finale of an international symposium in Estonia 2013, and our Touchstone solo exhibition and performances 2013 and 2014, we took this a step further in devising a duet between 2 visually impaired dancers: Mickel Smithen and Indra Slavena who performed independently without sighted partners. Another innovation came through sound where one of the dancers Indra spoke directly to fellow performers guiding them live through ‘a small dance’ as she had heard Lewis do in SubVision 1994.

 

Now in our latest work White Cane

One of my most important childhood experiences was of observing my father’s extraordinary sensitivity to touch, in handling his white cane and in the flow of movement that followed his mind as he handled a stone or utilitarian object like a cup. It was clear to see the connection between inner mind and outward gesture and I found such beauty and integrity in it.

On the other hand, where external visual references are dominant, it is easy to become disconnected. Bombarded with visual information we can just ‘tune out’. This becomes a particular challenge for visual artists and the medium of ‘dance performance’ in particular. In trying to get an audience to ‘tune in’, the choreographer trains their dancers to dance ‘faster, higher and stronger’, leading us towards an often stilted process of rehearsing which can leave us feeling empty too. A body that doesn’t fit the mold is made redundant from such a process; certainly there is no place for a child, non-dancer, disabled, older person or office worker here. Music, sound, then audio description if it exists are put into service for the dance and rarely developed as an integral part of the work. To my mind, these are terrible losses for the field of performance, and a desire to do something about that has become a constant theme in my work over the last 25 years.

 

Salamanda Tandem: essentially

 

I’m not the first to discover that if we can focus performance away from the notion of ‘rehearsal’ and more towards ‘spontaneous’ or ‘lived experience’ and be ‘in the moment’ now, we are somewhere closer to bringing audiences and performers together in mutual appreciation. Performance becomes like ‘real life’ and ‘real life’ like performance and we get closer to the very purpose of it. Where the inner imagination meets outer experience is the holy grail of the performer, and ultimately what makes us want to witness it.

One way in which I have particularly set out to achieve this is by making site-specific events for buildings and spaces where people are unaccustomed to seeing performance. This can helpfully change expectations and bring to light the potential for new things happening moment by moment. In White Cane we take to the fascinating Victoria Gardens a big busy place in front of the library, town hall and art gallery

A theatre or concert hall with its traditional arrangement of seats and stage, require the art work, performer and audience to behave in a certain way; any change from that needs significant effort, whereas in site specific work spontaneity is in the nature of the beast, we simply have to accommodate the possibility. This could happen with light, architecture, people, sound or movement, so if the aesthetic and compositional structure is designed to accommodate that, then each and every performance is significantly different, which keeps the work fresh and energetic which is what I find fascinating.

We want to create a work at that involves our audience as part of the performance using sung/spoken audio description and movement, exploring how the ‘onlooker’ as audience or choreographer, meets the ‘looked upon’ as performer or participant. The key to generating a space where both enter the creative frame, leaders/ followers exchange roles meeting through deep sensing, and a kind of mutual gaze supported by sound.

Catch this at http://www.ludusfestival.org

Touchstone Exhibition Rufford

Salamanda Tandem UK

Touchstone Exhibition 24th September – 13th October 2013

Salamanda Tandem Exhibition Rufford Gallery, Rufford Craft Centre, Nottinghamshire

22nd September 14.00-16.00 Private view and live performance

We would like to invite you to our opening performance and solo exhibition of Salamanda Tandem’s work, featuring photographs by company photographer and Osteopath Geoffrey Fielding, digital images by Richard Hughes, as well as new music and film from our latest work in Estonia and in the new fascinating building of Corby Cube. The exhibition explores the powerful influence of touch, sonic vision, and environs in our work and the deep collaboration between blind, visually impaired and sighted artists that lies behind Salamanda Tandem’s work and its philosophy.

The exhibition includes work made for: Astra Building Tallinn Estonia, Corby Cube, Bretton Hall, Hadley Learning Community, The Water Tower, Shaw’s Quarry Wirksworth, Church Of The Holy Sepulcre Northampton, Lincoln Cathedral, Leicester Cathedral and Nottingham Contemporary. Some examples pictured below.

                               

                               

     

Dancers Julie Hood, Karen Mok, Maria and Isabel Jones. Photo: Kate Haughton

Live Performance given 22nd September 2.30pm

Click on link below for information

http://www.nottinghamshire.gov.uk/enjoying/countryside/countryparks/rufford/ruffordcraftcentre/ruffordexhibitions/?entryid185=270869

Quarry-o-sion at Wirksworth Festival

Quarry-o-sion.
Wirksworth Festival, Shaws Quarry, The Stone Centre
Salamanda Tandem UK

Loved the contrast of the voices, history recorded and coming live from the quarry, the sounds of the stones clinking and the visual of the dance. A beautiful experience, well worth the walk

The best show of this year’s Festival!

13.00 – 15.00 Saturday 7th and Sunday 8th September. Live Performance in quarry with radio headsets

15.15 – 16.30 Audio in headsets in quarry continue

Quarry-o-sion

Owain Fitton-Jones Tuning into the sound

We’d like to invite you to join us for ‘Quarry-o-sion’ our new commissioned piece of sensory and sound art for Wirksworth Festival in a stunning local quarry, and then later in September to come along to our opening performance and solo exhibition of Salamanda Tandem’s work at Rufford Craft Centre Gallery, Nottinghamshire

Salamanda Tandem co-composers Isabel Jones and Duncan Chapman lead you into the world of one of Wirksworth’s ancient quarries experimenting with the physical and auditory landscape. Experience this environment using radio headsets whilst wandering around the quarry, receiving live and recorded sound, awakening perceptions of what is heard, touched and seen in an evocative and sensory art experience. Follow the touch of a visually impaired dancer, the eye of geologist and the ear of 3 musicians.

Unfolding over a 4 hour period, visitors are invited to drop in and out, or stay all afternoon to experience the quarry and environs through live performance, audio description, location recording, natural and processed sounds, as well as movement.

Salamanda Tandem Quarry-o-sion 2013 Duncan Chapman, Isabel Jones and Robbie Fitton-Jones. Photo: Geoffrey Fielding

Detailed schedule of Quarry-o-sion as follows: Feel free to drop in and out or spend the whole afternoon with us
Saturday 7th and 8th September 12.30 – 4.30pm

12.30 – 13.00  Visitors bus drop off at the Industrial Estate or arrive by steam train
13.00 – 13.15pm Radio Headphones collection at the entrance to Quarry

13.15 – 15.00pm Live performance in Shaw’s Quarry

15.00 – 16.00 Radio Headsets available for listening to the recording of our live performance whilst wandering around the quarry

16.00 – 16.30 Tea at the National Stone Centre

Includes
Singer / Dancer with the Stone and audio description
Scattered rocks sound the quarry amphitheater
Fossils up close and a guided journey
Settling back with tea at the stone centre

Going on behind scenes is the evolution of a series of acousmatic works exploring stone, rock and slate which will be available during and after this event.

This event is accessible to visually impaired people and is audio described live by radio signal singer Isabel Jones who also worked with Geoffrey Fielding to make this technically possible

Visit: Wirksworth Festival see below:

http://www.wirksworthfestival.co.uk/home/image:4016/events/trails-weekend/salamanda-tandem-uk-present-quarry-o-sion

FRAGILE? SYMPOSIUM Estonia

Salamanda Tandem has had a busy, fruitful and fascinating 2013 so far; as guest curator of the Fragile? Symposium in Estonia funded by the EU, and as director of the finale performance ‘Ad Astra’ made for 16 dancers, 90 delegates, string quartet and singer, the Symposium attracted over 100 artists, academics and performers internationally in the field of dance and visual impairment.

Ad Astra Estonia: Dancers, musicians academics and practitioners participating in the final event

*See Previous Blog for full list of Fragile? Symposium and Ad Astra contributors

Coming home Salamanda Tandem brought the work to Northamptonshire and performed ‘Ad Astra’ again at The Water Tower, then was then commissioned by Fermynwoods Contemporary Art to develop a new site specific work for Corby called ‘Touchstone’ the work centered in the beautiful Council Chamber at the heart of Corby Cube and was premiered in July 2013.

Touchstone Exhibition
Rufford Craft Centre Gallery, Nottinghamshire
Salamanda Tandem UK

24 September – 13 October
Preview and performance: Sunday 22 September, 2.00 – 4.00 pm (Performance 2.30pm)

Free

Touchstone is an exhibition, sound installation and film showing the site specific work of Salamanda Tandem and the culmination of an international project focused on the unique creativity of visually impaired people in dance, performance, sound and art presented by inclusive arts organisation salamanda tandem.

Photographs by Geoffrey Fielding, film and music will reveal work undertaken by the company over the last decade

Salamanda Tandem Leicester Cathedral. Dancers: Julie Hood, Karen Mok, Director Isabel Jones

A special performance will be given on Sunday 22nd September at 2.30pm which will be performed by Singer / Composer Isabel Jones, Co-Composer Duncan Chapman and dance artists Indra Slavena and Mickel Smithen

This event is audio described by singer Isabel Jones

Site Specific Performance In Estonia

Ad Astra

As part of her role as curator of the international Fragile? symposium, Isabel Jones presents a new site specific performance for Astra our host building at Tallinn University Estonia. The  final work is called “Ad Astra” which means , to the stars

Designed to celebrate a European wide community of interest and people who share a passion for this work, Ad Astra brings together all the Fragile choreographers and performers. Fragile? contributors and delegates will also be invited to contribute, via a sound score designed especially for this collective performance.

Isabel works with Salamanda Tandem colleagues photographer: Geoffrey Fielding, Co-composer Duncan Chapman, performer Mickel Smithen, dancer Indra Slavena, and the Estonian String Quartet ‘Amaroza’ to bring this work to Tallinn.

Your creative brief if you wish to accept it

Find a partner to help you get to know the Astra building like a friend. One of you can use sight and the other use touch.

Explore Astra and settle in on a place you feel most at home in or are most interested in exploring.

Taking turns to follow each other, bring the space to life in your minds eye through touch, and listening.

Hold this moment in your imagination. Record this moment with Duncan in words of your mother tongue, then be ready to witness your sound contribution brought to life at 14:00 on Sunday. The context for this is:

Fragile? Symposium

Dance, Arts and Visual Impairment

Tallinn University Estonia

19 to 21 April 2013

Supported by: European Union Culture Programme

Project Coordinator: Bærum Kulturhus

Fragile Project Initiator: Kjersti Kramm Engebrigsten

Project Partners:

Tallinn University, Bærum Kulturhus, Vo’Arte, Salamanda Tandem

Fragile? Symposium Curator: Isabel Jones

Collaboration partners: Dance Theatre Tee Kuubis, Film Studio Ikoon Ltd, Põhja-Eesti Pimedate Ühing [North Estonian Association for the Blind]

Sponsors: Eesti Kultuurkapital [Cultural Endowment of Estonia], Kulturrådet, Arts Council Norway, Governo de Portugal, Secretario de Estado da Cultura [Government of Portugal, Secretary of State for Culture]. National Lottery through Arts Council England, British Council Estonia, Royal Norwegian Embassy Tallinn, DGArtes: Direção-Geral das Artes [Directorate General of the Arts], Norwegian Embassy, Norges Blindeforbund [Norwegian Blind Association], Braille Bureau Nottinghamshire County Council (UK)

Introduction to the symposium programme

Welcome to the Fragile? symposium set here in the beautiful city of Tallinn.

Project partners, Bærum Kulturhus (Norway), Vo’Arte (Portugal), Tallinn University (Estonia) and Salamanda Tandem (England), thank you for joining us to create this European wide gathering of practitioners, participants, artists, and academics, engaged in the fields of dance, art and visual impairment.

We aim throughout the Fragile? symposium to encourage debate, participation, provocation, and appreciation of the contributions of visually impaired people and their collaborative partners in the fields of dance, performance, wellbeing and art.

The symposium programme has been brought together by our Fragile? curator, Isabel Jones, who, in shaping the themes and working closely with partners and contributors, has devised a fascinating event for us consisting of more than 25 separate participatory experiences, inclusive presentations, exhibits and performances.

Events will be presented by an exciting array of visually impaired and sighted experts from all over Europe debating, showing, and performing their work in response to the symposium themes.

Symposium Themes

Art: an inclusive aesthetic
How inclusive is dance as an art form for visually impaired people? What are we doing to make it more so? What affects are there on the ‘Art’ of an inclusive aesthetic?

Training and Work: routes and barriers
What shifts are needed both attitudinal and physical for visually impaired people to enter the performing arts as professionals? Where, for whom, and how has it been done well?

Wellbeing: value and appreciation
Is dance/art valuable to visually impaired people and, if so, how? How far does this value extend, and does it extend to audiences?

Background to the Symposium: Fragile becomes Fragile?

The symposium marks the culmination of a landmark EU funded project, founded by the Norwegian choreographer Kjersti Kramm Engebrigtsen named “Fragile”. Kjersti stimulated by a desire to share her experiences of dance with blind people Europe wide, and the fragility of this work, invited Estonian choreographer Ajjar Ausma and Portuguese choreographer Ana Rita Barata to join her in developing the project.

Morten Walderhaug from Bærum Kulturhus (Norway) provided the bedrock of support to raise EU money and bring Vo’Arte (Portugal), Tallinn University (Estonia) and Salamanda Tandem (UK) on board to realise the project.

In 2011 Kjersti, Ana Rita and Ajjar started work, supported by project partners and coordinators Marianne Bilger, Clara Antunes and Karmen Ong. Crossing art as well as country borders, the team included composers, costume and lighting designers, and documentary filmmakers from different countries. Local visually impaired people, dance teachers and specialist educators in the field of visual impairment were closely involved whilst, Kjersti, held local workshops in collaboration with Ajjar and Ana Rita in Portugal, Norway and Estonia. The process was designed to anchor the project within local populations in each country, and help develop infrastructure to support the creativity of visually impaired people, through access to professional dancers and choreographers. This work resulted in three new choreographic works: “Touched” (Kjersti K Engebrigsten), “Edge” (Ana Rita Barata) and “Plexus” (Ajjar Ausma). Premiered on 30^th March 2013 in Lisbon, then performed in Oslo and now in Tallinn at Kumu.

As part of the process Kjersti, Ana and Ajjar invited English choreographer Isabel Jonesto Norway. Inspired by her 30 years of practice and lived experience of the work, she was invited to become curator of this final symposium event to expand the potential of the project to include others. Isabel then introduced a ? suggesting the potential of Fragile? to be a centre for debate and enquiry.

Please find our detailed programme and information on all the Fragile? symposium contributors from page 5 of this booklet. FRAGILE? Symposium PROGRAMME

http://www.tlu.ee/fragile

Full List of Fragile? Symposium and Ad Astra Contributors

Kjersti K. Engebrigtsen (NORWAY) FRAGILE project Artistic Director, Choreographer of “TOUCHED”
Isabel Jones (ENGLAND) Artistic Director, Salamanda Tandem; FRAGILE? Symposium Curator; Director of site-specific performance “Ad Astra”
Ana Rita Barata (PORTUGAL) Choreographer of “EDGE”, Vo’Arte
Ajjar Ausma (ESTONIA) Choreographer of “PLEXUS”
Mick Wallis (ENGLAND) Professor & Chair in Performance and Culture, University of Leeds
Kaite O’Reilly (WALES) Playwright
Joselia Neves  (PORTUGAL) Coordinating Professor, Instituto Politécnico de Leiria
Katy Dymoke (ENGLAND) Artistic Director, TOUCHDOWN
Dr David Feeney (SCOTLAND) Senior Researcher Fellow, Edinburgh University; Manager, Visual Impairment Scotland
Lee Sass (ENGLAND) Artist

Delphine Demont (FRANCE) Artistic Director, ACAJOU
José Luis Pagés (FRANCE) Artistic Collaborator, ACAJOU
Maria Oshodi (ENGLAND) Artistic Director, EXTANT
Per Solvang (NORWAY) Sociologist and Professor, University College of Oslo
Gregor Strutz (GERMANY) Artist
Sarah Kettley (ENGLAND) Senior Lecturer, Nottingham Trent University
Saïd Gharbi (BELGIUM) Choreographer and Dancer
Ana Stegnar (SLOVENIA) Choreographer and Dancer
Rachel Gadsden (ENGLAND) Visual Artist
Dijana Raudoniene (LITHUANIA) Post-doctoral Researcher, Vilnius Academy of the Arts; NGO Culture Artfact
Mickel Smithen (ENGLAND) Dancer “Ad Astra” Salamanda Tandem
Izabela Morska (POLAND) Writer; Academic, Gdansk University
Erik Loide (ESTONIA) Chairman of the Council, Estonian Foundation for the Visually Impaired; Accessibility Expert
Ülle Lepp (ESTONIA) Chair of the Board, Estonian Foundation for the Visually Impaired; Researcher of the non-profit sector
Kristin Kurtna (ESTONIA) Line-dance Instructor, NGO Huviline
Sülvi Sarapuu (ESTONIA) Expert in tactile books and audio description, NGO Kakora
Riho Roosioja (ESTONIA) Public Administration Master Student, Tallinn University
Kirke-Anneli Kuld (ESTONIA) Arts Therapy Student, Tallinn University
Indra Slavena (LATVIA) Dancer of “Ad Astra” Salamanda Tandem
Duncan Chapman (ENGLAND) Artist; Performer and composer of “Ad Astra” Salamanda Tandem
Geoffrey Fielding (ENGLAND) Photographer, Salamanda Tandem
Maria Lloyd (NORWAY) Film Maker of “Into The Unknown”
Pedro Sena Nunes (PORTUGAL) Film Maker of “Edge”; Co-Artistic Director, Vo’Arte
Vahur Laiapea (ESTONIA) Film Maker of “See You On Stage”; Film Director/Producer, Film studio Ikoon
Nina Biong (NORWAY) dancer of “TOUCHED”
Geir Hytten (NORWAY) dancer of “TOUCHED”
Hege Eidseter (NORWAY) dancer of “TOUCHED”
Katja Schia (NORWAY) dancer of “TOUCHED”
Alexander Aarø (NORWAY) dancer of “TOUCHED”
Bernardo Gama (PORTUGAL) dancer of “EDGE”
Sofia Soromenho (PORTUGAL) dancer of “EDGE”
Luís Oliveira (PORTUGAL) dancer of “EDGE”
Joana Gomes (PORTUGAL) dancer of “EDGE”
Jaan Ulst (ESTONIA) dancer of “PLEXUS”
Kärt Tõnisson (ESTONIA) dancer of “PLEXUS”
Hedy Haavalaid (ESTONIA) dancer of “PLEXUS”
Marianne Bilger (NORWAY) FRAGILE Project Manger, Bærum Kulturhus
Morten Walderhaug (NORWAY) FRAGILE Project Leader; Artistic and Managing Director, Bærum Kulturhus
Karmen Ong (ESTONIA) FRAGILE project Estonian Coordinator, Tallinn University
Eveli Kuuse (ESTONIA) FRAGILE project Estonian Communication Manager
Karin Org (ESTONIA) – FRAGILE? Symposium Co-organiser, Tallinn University Conference Centre
Clara Antunes (PORTUGAL) – FRAGILE project Portuguese Coordinator, Vo’Arte